


Déjà vu

by Sherlocked



Series: I Know The Thing That You Do [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: 3 times 1 time, And he measures his life in Lizzys, Cullen has a lot of personal growth to work on, Cullen's Cursed, F/M, Personal Growth, Prequel, Self Aware not Self Esteem, The One Where Every Last One Has The Same Nickname
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-10 04:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11119560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherlocked/pseuds/Sherlocked
Summary: 1:  The illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time.2: The feeling that one has seen or heard something before.3:  Something overly or unpleasantly familiar.





	1. The First

Cullen knows he has a curse. It’s not like it’s tried to hide itself; in point of fact, it’s always marked the most important parts of his life.

His Curse, though no one believes him, is to fall for a redhead nicknamed Lizzy in the most embarrassing, mind numbing way possible, and for her to be whisked off her feet by a woman who actually showed any interest in her, leaving him crushed through literally no one's fault but his own.

~

**_0_ **

~

When he was a child, Templar Lizbet was his idol. He chased her around Honnleath, bombarding her with questions she answered with seemingly infinite patience. By 8, he had asked all the questions he could think of, and came away satisfied, returning home that night to announce to the dinner table that he was going to be a Templar. His siblings giggled while his parents smiled patiently and reassured him he would in the way they said he might get candy when they got home when he definitely wasn’t. 

Cullen was undaunted, however, because there were two things he knew about himself with absolute certainty;

First, that he was going to be a Templar when he grew up, and that he was going to do important things that made everyone happier.

And second, that he was going to marry Templar Lizbet, or at least someone who was as good at fighting as her.

~

Mia was the first to realize that this wasn’t like the time Cullen swore up, down and sideways he was going to slay a dragon when he grew up, or when he was absolutely adamant that he was going to live in a castle. She was also the first to support him, getting Branson and Rosalie to help him train in little ways, like defending from multiple attackers at the same time (even if the worst their siblings could do was tickle him) and convincing their parents that him joining the Templars was a good idea, and the worst that would happen is that he’d be well trained and able to help defend the farm from wolves or bandits.

Templar Lizbet was the last to warm to the idea, but after weeks of his trying (and, though he wasn’t aware of it, all three of his siblings coming to bring the Templar baked goods every morning, leaving Lizbet to attempt to deal with three sets of Rutherford puppy eyes that could rival a basket of Mabari and a basket of pastries before her coffee) she finally agreed, teaching him the basics of using a sword and shield.

When he was 13, Knight Commander Michelle came through Honnleath doing inspections, and Cullen wants to impress her so badly. He comes to the Chantry everyday after his chores are done (and, he suspects, his siblings lighten his load a little) and trains.

He’s getting ready to leave from training, and goes to tell Templar Lizbet he’s going home when he sees her and Knight-Commander Michelle kiss in the alcove. He quickly turns on his heel and takes the long way home, taking time to collect himself and be happy that Templar Lizbet is happy before going home to his siblings interrogating him about any and all interactions he’d had with any of the Templars that day, searching for clues they were going to take him on.

~

The next day, Knight Commander Michelle is waiting with Templar Lizbet where they usually train.

“You’re very dedicated to becoming a templar, I hear. It’s quite impressive.” Any lingering remorse is engulfed in an overwhelming wave of hope, and Cullen snaps to attention.

“Yes, ser.”

“You haven’t had the normal preparations, you know.”

“Yes, ser.”

“And you’re older than most recruits.”

“Yes, ser, but at the very least I want to try; I want to help people, ser, and being a Templar is the best way to do that.” The Knight-Commander raises her eyebrows and nods appreciatively, before turning back to Templar Lizbet, who looks both proud and smug as she meets her superior’s gaze.

“You were right about him.”

“I know I was, ser. What d’you think?”

“What do I think?” The Knight Commander looked back at Cullen. “Cullen Rutherford, would you like to join the Templars?” 


	2. The Second

1

~

Liz’an’ara - Lizzy for short and human ease - was a  _ mage  _ and a Dalish elf who’d come when she was still a child and the first mage Cullen is assigned to watch when he finishes training and truly becomes a templar. Cullen had often wondered why the Chantry thought it was a good idea to take a group that largely consisted of hormonal teenagers and locked them in a tower, but he’d kept such questions to himself, especially when he started having feelings for Lizzy.

It wasn’t like some form of attraction wasn’t going to form, when you spend practically every waking hour of your life with someone, at the very least a basic understanding would occur. But Lizzy tracked him down, and announced that if he was going to stalk her through the tower like she was a deer, the very least he could do is not make it creepy.

And Cullen would never admit it, but he’s pretty sure that’s when he started falling.

He carried piles of books for around the library while she studied incessantly, eventually giving in and reading the books after she did, and learning a lot about mages and magical theory in the meantime. He also learned about the Dalish, as Lizzy had special permission to walk in the gardens alone, with only one escort. She would tend to it and talk about her childhood, her family, and her culture. She talked about maybe trying to find a way to make a Dalish circle, a clan specifically created to allow for Dalish mages to learn without losing their culture.  She even started teaching him elven, and he was proud of the fact that he got his stuttering down to only about half the time, and only half of that was because of actual difficulty.

If he’s honest with himself, the only reason his getting to know Lizzy hasn’t given him a panic attack yet is because of his dedication to Not Think About The Thing, because if he doesn’t think about it, it won’t happen-

“Cullen,” The Knight-Commander intones as Cullen desperately tries to stay awake (it’s fuck-o-clock, why in Andraste’s name was he  _ here _ ), “Apprentice Liz’an’ara’s Harrowing is scheduled for 8 this morning. As her guard, you will be expected to be there as her Watcher. I suggest you prepare.”

Later, Cullen bowed his head against the idol of Andraste in the Tower’s small Chantry Chapel, raised his head slightly, and let it fall with an audible  _ thunk _ . Sure, Lizzy would be  _ fine _ , he wasn’t even going to consider an outcome where she wouldn’t be, but he’d get reassigned, and they would barely get to see each other; no, he wouldn’t get to see  _ her. _ It wasn’t like she spent time with him ‘cause she  _ liked _ him, she had to spend time with him, she had just tried to make the forced proximity more pleasant.

For a moment, Cullen let himself fantasize about running down to the mage’s dorms, shaking Lizzy awake, and spiriting her off into the night. They’d find her clan, and they’d live happily ever after in the middle of the woods and no one would ever bother them again.

Cullen shook his head and sighed to himself. Ignoring the various ways that definitely wouldn’t work, it’d be selfish of him to ask her to give up her dreams for him. The entire time they’d known each other, she’d done literally everything in her power to be prepared for her Harrowing short of actually doing it, just so she could even attempt her Dalish circle, so maybe other Dalish mages wouldn’t be dragged away from their families like her.

Besides, at best, they were friends, and she didn’t need him mucking that up because his heart was a dumbass.

When she succeeds her Harrowing later that morning, he’s pleased for her, and only a little sad, and only runs like a bitch a little when she  _ flirts _ (?!?!?!?!?) with him.

He only emerges from the upper floors when the phylactery room alarm goes off and he’s practically carried by the tide of templars coming down the stairs.

Cullen’s ears start ringing as Lizzy is accused of helping the ineffectual dumbarse and Lily steal and destroy the whiney fucker’s phylactery; rank bullshit, Cullen knows well, because the only reason Cullen doesn’t know his name is because Lizzy only ever referred to him in insults to his intelligence, and she was slated to work directly under Irving, and probably take his place, she wouldn’t give that up, but why was she there? And could his brain do him a huge favor and think about maybe one thing at a time?

When Irving explains that possibly Greagoir would have realized that the reason they were at the entrance with a contingent before the alarms went off was because Lizzy informed him of the plan, and was helping, Cullen can actually breath for half a second until the fuckface tries to use blood magic. Greagoir cuts him off, and Lily acts betrayed, like she wasn’t aware of his willingness to break the rules, and the spellbind fucks off, and Cullen gets a sick sort of pleasure from being secure in the knowledge that he’s going to get hunted down like a dog for even thinking about harming someone near Lizzy.

That doesn’t last long, however, as Greagoir sentences Lizzy and Lily to Aeonar for proximity to blood magic, and the Grey Warden conscripts Lizzy before she can be sentenced.

Later that night, sitting in the Circle Garden on Lizzy’s favorite bench, Cullen stared at Fervenial, Lizzy’s favorite constellation (“If I can see it, it means I’m sitting under a tree no matter where I am.”) and mused that even if she was in the Grey Wardens, she at least got to be outside. And she may even have a better chance of starting her own Circle.

~

And then, because of course, Uldred fills the Circle with demons.

Cullen isn’t sure why he’s being kept alive and tortured for so long, though in retrospect he attributes it to the way the Desire demons kept looking at him. It almost made him wish they’d just killed him more; endlessly watching the horrors they’d inflict on the others interspersed with Desire Demons pretending to be Lizzy was more pain than he really needed in one lifetime, to be completely honest.

When the Lizzy-Demon comes to the spell cage and brings something Wynn shaped and some people he’s never seen before in his life, there’s a brief moment when he pauses, because he’s absolutely sure he’s never seen those people in his life, but it’s immediately overwhelmed by a wave of  _ fuck them _ . He rants and raves about how everyone in the tower needs to die, because they’re all blood mages who’re out to murder them all, and the group (all women, he guesses that makes sense, but why have two women who aren’t his type and  _ Wynn _ if they’re Desire Demons?) have a quiet conversation and move on, except-

Except the Lizzy-Demon stops and places a hand on the other side of the barrier and instead of lustful or calculating, she just looks...sad?

They all walk off (only one isn’t a mage, none of them can be trusted) and the look of regret on the Lizzy-Demon’s face is what makes it finally hit him -  _ that _ was Lizzy, and he’s just said all those this out loud, to her, and he is hit with a wave of nausea.

Cullen, looking back, know that this was the closest he came to snapping out of it, and replays the memory over and over, and knows the only thing that stopped him was every instinct he had screaming at him that mages were why he’d been tortured, feeding him every line of anti-mage rhetoric he’d ever half-listened to in the hour he was alone.

When the barrier goes down, the templars and the mages who’d made it out ‘safe’ find him, and he is attended to by the surgeon instead of the mage who’d tried to heal him (he’d  _ growled _ at the kid, he had no idea where that came from; the robes just triggered such a upswell of pure fear) and his wounds are being treated when Lizzy’s group comes down the stairs, hanging back when they see Greagoir and Irving deep in conversation. Wynn starts healing Lizzy ( **_badwrongbetrayalwolfinmagesrobes_ ** ) while the dark haired woman wearing practically nothing leans against a pillar, seemingly unconcerned if not for the flick of her wrist that mended Lizzy’s robes and made the blood stains disappear. 

It’s the other ginger that makes it impossible for him to watch, though - she had been fussing over Lizzy a little too close to be platonic, and though he couldn’t see the other woman’s expression, he could see Lizzy’s, and Cullen had to clench his fists against the bile rising in his throat and ignore his hurt feelings in favor of searching the small, tight (huddled, scared) group of mages for any sign of further betrayal.

He demands, when Lizzy finally has her audience with the Knight Captain and Grand Enchanter, that they kill  _ all _ the mages, just to be sure. The  _ sadness _ in Lizzy’s eyes hurt, and he steels himself in time for her to disagree, knowing he’s lost when she comments,

“Having lived here my whole life, I trust the Templars to have safely vetted all the remaining mages; the only reason they hadn’t before, I feel, was because they didn’t know to look for it, which I cannot fault you for.”

Greagoir agrees, and Cullen is very aware of the relief in Irving’s voice when he does.

~

There had been a time, once, where Lizzy was to be the Grand Enchanter, and Cullen the Knight Captain.  Honestly, he muses as the Wardens leave the Circle, it wasn’t all that surprising that the universe had decided to screw that up for both of them.

He’s taken off the general rotation when someone sees him flinch toward his sword when a young mage casts a light spell, and moved into paperwork, where Cullen gets along fine, for a time.

Then he’s delivering some reports to be signed and a student casts their fireball  _ just  _ bigger than they were supposed to, and-

( **_“What’s the matter, love?” The Demon that looks like Lizzy - it’s_ ** **not** **_, the Lizzy he knows has never worn that little in her_ ** **life** **_\- slinks over to the barrier. “All you have to do is say you love me.”_ **

( **_“You’re not the one I -” The rest of the sentence is eaten by a scream and a fresh third-degree burn on his leg-_ ** )

And he’s being held back by three templars, the student hiding being their teacher, whose eyes are wide with fear. 

Cullen steps back, hands his sword (when did he take out his sword?) to one of the templars, gathers the papers and finishes walking them to the Knight-Captain, where he hands them in with a request that he be transferred somewhere his outbursts would have a smaller chance of hurting someone. 

A month later (during which, an apprenticed templar is assigned to him as a runner) Greigor calls him in to tell him he’s been reassigned to the Kirkwall Circle to help their templars with the mage rebellion. 

That wasn’t  _ quite _ what he meant, but if he can help people, he’d do what he could.


	3. The Third

Cullen met the second Lizzy - one Lizette Hawke, who he just  _ knew  _ would be trouble the second he set eyes on her - while attempting to intimidate a recruit into telling him where his fellows have been disappearing off to, because  _ of course that’s how _ .

 

And, because she can’t just be some random girl with a popular nickname he sees once and never again, she starts running around ‘fixing’ things; using flirting, fighting, and sarcasm, she cuts herself a path through Kirkwall and is a pain in his ass for a Maker-damned  _ decade _ .

 

He almost- no, he actually feels bad for everything he’d said about mages when her sister gets brought into the Circle, but it's almost overshadowed by the guilt he feels for letting a name and a pretty face attempt to change how he feels; what he needs to survive. He leaves it that, at least in the Circle both her and her sister will be safe before burying it under all the bullshit that Kirkwall was famous for; and dear fuck did the former Knight Captain know nothing about the very real importance of getting your paperwork done. 

 

(Years after, a certain woman with a certain name will ask him if templars take a Vow of Chastity, and if he did, and he’ll rub his neck and stammer and try and figure out how to hide how far his blush has traveled.

 

(Contrary to popular belief, this won’t be because he’s a blushing virgin, but because sex lives aren’t really a conversation topic he has any experience with. In reality, during his decade’s posting in Kirkwall, he’d worked his way through every other letter in the alphabet in an attempt to shake L’s hold on him with limited (read; non existent) success.

 

(And no, Meredith wasn’t M; he wasn’t Templar Lizbet, and the way the Knight Commander had  _ looked _ at him the  _ one and only _ time he’d been training shirtless had dissuaded him from her forever.)

 

As the years went on, Cullen became more and more sure that Li- Hawke had been helping the mages (had been pretty sure before finding out about her sister) and he  _ wants _ to be cold and look down on her for it, or warn her against them and explain how treacherous they can be.

 

But he can’t.

 

For all of his nightmares, and the sword on his hip he clutches like a child’s toy, he can’t ignore how utterly... _ people _ the mages are. 

 

And as the years go on, and time separates him from Ferelden's circle while sneaking mage children playing keep-away with balls of light and mothers entertaining small children by making their storybooks come alive in between his nightmares, his unease at the mages being made Tranquil or dying grows. Cullen starts noticing the piles of lyrium bottles next to Meredith’s desk, requisition reports detailing her sudden dosage increase from the standard one vial to 5, and he starts taking over more of her duties, diffusing her orders till they were back to what they had been, and a scared and mouthy mage wasn’t made tranquil by taking the ‘wrong tone’.

 

This is about when lyrium starts sticking in his throat, and the blue liquid starts reminding him of older templars who barely remember their own names in the manor just across the border into Orlais; an entire castle filled with once proud warriors who had all but forgotten how to speak. 

 

A few weeks into being down to half a dose per day, he goes down to the rogue bar on the docks to drink, because he wants an hour of peace and quiet, with no templars and no lyrium to make his headache worse. He takes his drink and sits in the darkest corner he can find, and the room makes the group decision to ignore him.

 

Except for Li- _ Hawke _ , who sits across from him with her own drink and a bottle, and quietly drinks her own. 

 

When the first bottle is empty is when they finally start talking, and eventually the conversation turns to mages, and Cullen admits his discomfort with them due to traumatic past experiences, and apologizes for telling her, especially what with her sister.

 

When he’s done, Hawke tilts her head at him like a Mabari considering what limb to grab first, an image not helped by her Mabari using his leg as a pillow.

 

“Y’know what’s funny?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I had almost this exact conversation with a mage earlier, but instead of mages, it was templars, and instead of my sister, it was you.”

 

Cullen had opened his mouth to scoff, or argue, or something, but instead it clicked in his head-

 

What the blood mages and Demons in the circle was actual, outright torture, just because he’d been a templar.

 

For a mage to feel the same way about him- that was- 

 

The next few moments were blurry and claustrophobic, and his vision clears as he starts vomiting in the alley next to the tavern; from the realization or the booze, he’s not sure. 

 

Two sets of boots and a Mabari enter his field of vision, and his (admittedly, pathetic) attempts to bat away the hands that start herding him out of the alley are ignored, and his vision clears next at Hawke’s manor, and Hawke and Isabella gently shoving him into the guest room and divesting him of his armor and pushing him into a bed softer than any he’d ever felt before.

 

He can just focus enough to see Hawke blowing out all the candles except a candelabra across the room from him - just enough to see where he was, but dark enough so it wouldn’t hinder his sleep- and Isabella leaning against the doorframe.

 

“Why’d you decide to help him? Didn’t he put away your sister?”

 

“Poor fuck’s been through some shit, and I honestly don’t think he believes half the anti-mage shit that leaves his mouth. Kid needs a night off.”

 

“You big softie.”Cullen’s heart twinged when Hawke leaned in to give Isabella a peck on the lips. 

 

“I saw you with Shark, I don’t think you can really play the ‘cold, unfeeling bitch’ card.”

 

“I was just petting him!”

 

“You were  _ gushing _ , Bell, it was adorable.”

 

Of course, he tells the ceiling as his head sinks slowly into the feather pillows and the door closes, that’s how he’d find out; the two of them being unarguably good for each other. There’d been gossip that the head Qunari had tried to hold one of Hawke’s gang hostage over a stolen book and she’d killed him instead, which, given Isabella, made sense.

 

At least she looked happy.

 

~

 

Meredith holds her glowing red sword aloft, and Cullen can  _ feel _ the lyrium in his veins, and he can’t. He can’t diffuse this, he can’t argue for it, he can’t excuse, he just can’t. His commanding officer is bugfuck insane, and he outright refused to take any part in it.

 

The fight is long and brutal, and is somehow both shorter and faster than he’d anticipated.A couple of his men - fuck, they really were  _ his _ men now - move to stop Hawke as she attempts to leave the city, but he makes the order and they stand down.

 

Ha-Lizzy. Lizzy is the one who looks back at him and smiles with a wave before disappearing onto a ship with her girlfriend.

 

~

 

When the Right and Left Hands of the Divine come into his office months later (carving themselves out a space between meeting about rebuilding efforts, peace talks with the Circle and the apostates in the town, and his quiet half an hour of screaming into a pillow) they explain that Divine Justinia didn’t think the Conclave would work (which gives him so much more hope in the Chantry than he’d had when the Conclave had been announced) and in the very likely event they didn’t come to an agreement, the Divine was going to call a second Inquisition, and would he like to run their army.

 

His acceptance takes about as long as it took him to explain to his Knight-Captain what she was being left with; though, honestly, she was probably more prepared to be Knight-Commander than he was. Kirkwall was like a bad taste in Cullen’ mouth, full of memories of himself he didn’t feel equipped to face and entirely justified prejudices making his job twice as hard. Leaving Kirkwall, and the Templars, gave both him and the organizations a chance to try again, with a clean slate.

 

He was at a fifth of the recommended dose, by the time they’re preparing to leave Kirkwall, and he and Lady Pentaghast had built enough of a rapport that Cullen felt comfortable explaining his intentions to quit the stuff. Cassandra is surprisingly receptive, and surprisingly (at least to him) suggests that he attempt quitting lyrium cold-turkey.

 

Maybe now he’d get a chance to leave his baggage behind him, or at least process it. As it stood, unless the Divine’s birth name was secretly Elizabeth, not Dorthea, it wasn’t as if the next Lizzy would be able to catch him off guard. The Inquisition seems a lot more laid back, anyway; there was a chance it’d practically be a vacation.


	4. Plus One

He'd been following Cassandra and Leliana from Kirkwall (bickering all the way about the best way to execute the Divine's grand plan) when there's a rumble; and not a day after they receive first news that The Temple of Sacred Ashes, and the entire Conclave it had held, was gone in a massive explosion, one that rivaled even the Apostate's bombing of Kirkwall's Chantry.

It didn't hit Cullen, at first.

Not when Cassandra started  _screaming_ at Varric about how they needed Hawke, because she would put everything back to rights, she  _had_ to, she was the only one that  _could_ , while becoming more and more angry as the Dwarf repeated that he was sorry, Seeker, but he had no idea where Hawke went.  _Not that it would matter_ , Cullen mused idly as he herded the enraged woman away from the prisoner before she hit him, _Hawke and Isabella were definitely long gone, and the last thing that would get either of them to come back was_ yet another  _exploded Chantry._

Not when Leliana was practically engulfed in a murder of ravens, placing missives on and off legs as fast as she could get things written, suddenly  _exploding_ up from her little desk and stalking over after ordering a number of her scouts to replace her, only to explain that there had been a single survivor.

It didn't hit Cullen as the Right and Left Hands of the Divine were arguing how best to go about it, their voices getting louder and more tense at each exchange.

Nor did it him him when one of the Scouts decided he was the least terrifying of the three of them and hands him a scroll of paper.

**the suspect who stepped out of the rift in the temple of sacred ashes was one Lady Elizabeth Trevelyan-**

The two women, who looked about to come to blows, both stopped and stared at the sound of Cullen's head hitting the table.

 

 


End file.
